THE ENERGY, intellect and wit of theatre manager Michael Diskin was recalled at his funeral in Galway yesterday, when tributes were paid to his commitment to “transformation through the arts”.
The “repercussions” of his work would be felt in Galway and in the wider artistic community for “many years” to come, close friend and performer Little John Nee told the large congregation in St Ignatius’s Church (“The Jes”) on the city’s Sea Road.
Little John recalled that in one of their last conversations last week, when both were aware of his impending passing, Mr Diskin had told him: “We are theatre people – we should be able to do this.”
President Michael D Higgins and his wife, Sabina, had travelled to Mr Diskin’s removal service on Monday, while yesterday Mrs Higgins attended the funeral in a personal capacity and the President was represented by his aide-de-camp Comdt Tony Whelan.
A wide cross-section of the arts community sympathised with Mr Diskin’s wife Evelyne, daughter Chloe and brothers Séamus and Dermot.
The chief celebrants at the Mass – held in English, Irish and French – were Fr John Humphreys SJ and Fr Charlie Davey SJ. Relative Fr Seán McHugh was a concelebrant.
Mr Diskin, manager of the Town Hall and Black Box theatres in Galway, and previously of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, was “someone bigger than life who contributed so much to the arts community and beyond”, Blue Teapot Theatre Company co-founder Claude Madec said in his tribute.
“All of us touch something deep inside if we allow ourselves to enter into the celebration of Michael’s life,” Mr Madec said. His illness over the past two years had taken him on an “extraordinary journey” and he still had “many plans”, but “we’re not going to make a saint out of Michael today, as we knew him too well for that”, Mr Madec said to laughter.
He quoted from Raymond Carver’s poem Late Fragment: “And did you get what/ you wanted from this life, even so?/ I did/ And what did you want?/ To call myself beloved, to feel myself/ beloved on the earth.”
Fr Humphreys quoted an African proverb: “You may forget those with whom you laughed, but you will never forget those with whom you wept.”
